Kukla's Korner Hockey

For the 21st century owner, removing the general public as the main source of income allows the operation of a sports team to be conducted free of the restraints of what the general public would consider decency. The NFL hires scab refs, saves money on its officiating budget, and the financial blowback from a few disgruntled fans tuning out is negligible. The NHL locks out its players for a full season, comes back, and revenues go up 50 percent over the course of the next collective bargaining agreement, while player salaries stay near pre-2004 levels. If there is a way to make more money, and owners think they can get away with it, they will, up to and including pharmacy magnate Daryl Katz—with public funding already agreed to for a new arena in Edmonton—taking a trip to Seattle in a blatant attempt, during a lockout no less, to blackmail the public back in Alberta into further lining his pockets.

-Jesse Spector of The Sporting News where you can read more on the NHL Lockout and the NFL replacement refs...

Comments

This is a flawed argument, mainly because the NHL does not have a relevant TV deal while the other leagues do.

In-the-seats NHL fans are absolutely integral to the financial success of that league, while the same kinds of fans in the other leagues are far, FAR less relevant. Attendance percentages of league revenue bear that out.

I mean, attendance in the NFL last year was at its lowest level since 1998.

The reason lockouts work for the NHL and strongarm tactics like Katz work is that actual NHL fans are incredibly passionate and committed to their sport, to the point that they pay out 50% more in tickets over the past 6 or 7 years, come back immediately and in numbers after every form of interruption, and increase at a very small but very consistent .5-1.5% a year.

Katz doesn’t want to move the team. He knows his best long-term solution is to stay in Edmonton… just with a brand new building constructed primarily with other peoples money. He will leave if ‘forced’, because he can get a sweetheart deal from a Sonic-less Seattle that might increase his profitability by 10 or so percentage points.

I don’t think morality fits anywhere in this mess. There certainly is nothing moral about billionaire owners wanting an even larger chunk of the pie, just as morality sure seems to be lacking when millionaire players refuse to play the ‘game they love’ for 2 million per year instead of 2.6 million per year.

It does if its the owners lack of moral compass forcing theyers to give back money on a guaranteed contract they signed

That argument remains one which lacks a whole lot of substance.

The CBA is also a contract. It is a contract that supersedes the SPC (standard player contract). Renegotiating that CBA after it’s expiration is not in any way ‘morally’ different than the process any player undergoes when he renegotiates an expiring SPC with his team.

btw, that contract expired. The players didn’t say they weren’t going to honor the CBA contract, it’s the owners saying they aren’t going to honor the guaranteed contracts they signed, fail to see your point.

Yes, that’s obvious.

First off, you appear to be confused regarding the nature of escrow. I have not read anywhere that the NHL has suggest not honoring guaranteed contracts. I have read that the NHL has suggested that the overall share of revenue should be adjusted. Those are two separate issues, although both are contractual and not ‘moral’ in nature.

Again, the CBA is also a contract. It is not a case of ‘failing to honor’ previous contracts, because those contracts were predicated on a CBA that, as you have mentioned, has expired.

New CBA, new rules. That’s how CBA’s across all sports have always worked. It’s not like all the guys who started playing before the RFA rules were modified had to continue to play under those rules because those were the rules when they signed their deals, right?

Of course not. It would be laughable to suggest such a thing.

If a new CBA only provided a charter for 28 teams, is the NHL still ‘morally responsible’ to keep the same number of total NHLers by expanding roster sizes?

Of course not. It would be laughable to suggest such a thing.

So, too, is it likewise laugh-inducing to presume that contracts under an old CBA are sacrosanct just because a new CBA may be less conducive to certain terms in those SPCs.

The cap can change. The way the cap is calculated can change. SPC terms can be relaxed, tightened, added or dissolved. Shares of revenue can be modified.

All of that stuff is negotiated. If a CBA agreement was reached that increased player share rather than decreased it, would it be ‘immoral’ of the players to sign an agreement like that?

Of course not. It would be laughable to suggest such a thing.

But no one is as learned as you so it should come to no surprised right?

Why do you keep saying things like that, as though it’s something I’ve said or even suggested? That’s very JJ-like of you. I am giving you my opinion. You are providing yours. If you want to exchange ideas, spectacular. If you want to play goofy internet messageboard games, that’s fine too… just don’t confuse yourself that they’re the same thing.

You sure you aren’t a Dive fan in disguise?

Was that supposed to make sense in some way, or was it merely an example of an intensely clumsy attempt at mockery?

What I have a problem with is the owner’s signing ridiculous contracts days before the CBA expired, knowing they had no intent to meet those terms under the CBA they would be proposing. So I think it is disingenous that they negotiated in “good faith” for whatever it is worth. In reality, it isn’t worth much and the next CBA is all that will matter.

Regardless of good faith or not, my biggest problem with the owners is that no matter what agreement they set up, they will figure out a way to undermine it and lead the NHL back into a lockout on the next go around. I get the feeling that these “titans of industry” aren’t much brighter than the “gas station attendants” they have working for them. Many of them might have had a bright idea once upon a time that lead to a pile of cash, but that thought may have since died of loneliness.

What I have a problem with is the owner’s signing ridiculous contracts days before the CBA expired, knowing they had no intent to meet those terms under the CBA they would be proposing. So I think it is disingenous that they negotiated in “good faith” for whatever it is worth.

It’s like nobody in the world understands that the CBA is the pre-eminent document, not SPCs.

Again, what is signed into a SPC is meaningless if it isn’t supported by the CBA. That’s not an instance of ‘bad faith’, because it’s not like there was some hidden CBA the owners all had that they referenced while signing players to contracts that they SPRING on them before the ink dries. Nobody really knows what the next CBA will bring.

If some GM gives a player a full NTC and full NTCs end up being wiped out of the new CBA, that’s not a case of an owner negotiating in bad faith. If the new CBA allows UFA status after 2 years instead of around 4-6 like it is now, players who take advantage of that change in rule would not be acting in bad faith either.

It’s like nobody in the world understands that the CBA is the pre-eminent document, not SPCs.

It’s like everybody else except for you realizes that the SPC is not predicated by a CBA and that the latter is not required to define the former. You absolutely do not have to have a CBA in order for the contracts the players signed to work. You simply have to be playing hockey. The owners aren’t going to allow that to happen because they’re rather lock out than give the players the option of going on strike when it’s beneficial to them.

Sure, a CBA can redefine entire droves of SPCs, but that has to be bargained in. It’s not a contract superseding another, it’s a contract modifying another and it has to be done carefully.

The only thing the expiration of the CBA has done is to give the league the option of creating a lockout (since the last one expressly forbade both strikes and lockouts). When hockey resumes, every dime the players signed for under their old contracts would still be guaranteed to them UNLESS the players themselves decide to give some of that money back through a rollback.

Once again, your thinking is backwards to what controls what. An owner negotiating a contract he intends to try to force a player to renegotiate-by-proxy in the next month or two is indeed a bad-faith negotiation.

If the new CBA allows UFA status after 2 years instead of around 4-6 like it is now, players who take advantage of that change in rule would not be acting in bad faith either.

Unless a player who took advantage of that rule change signed his contract for two years with the intent of creating that rule with a new CBA. Then that would have been a negotiation in bad faith.

That’s not an instance of ‘bad faith’, because it’s not like there was some hidden CBA the owners all had that they referenced while signing players to contracts that they SPRING on them before the ink dries. Nobody really knows what the next CBA will bring.

What I think you are saying is that if an owner agrees to something under the current CBA that he has no intention of honoring through negotiation of a new CBA then that is negotiating in good faith. I happen to think it isn’t. And for the millionth time I do understand the precedence of the CBA over SPCs, although we are talking about negotiating and carrying contracts across CBAs. Based on what Jimmy D has stated, that the owners have a lot of “unwritten” agreeements, if the owners agreed to continue to sign contracts under the old CBA knowing that they would roll them all back by 24% in the next agreement, that could also be considered collusion as well.